Los Alerces National Park is a protected area of 263,000 hectares (the 4 largest in Argentina) that is located in the province of Chubut, precisely at 50 kilometers from the city of Esquel and 25 kilometers from Trevelín, on the international border with Chile.
Its exceptional beauty and the unique characteristics of the Alerces are some of the reasons why UNESCO declared the Park a World Heritage Site in 2017, to conserve and protect them.
Now, What are Alerces? It is a conifer that grows only in humid and temperate forests of Argentina and Chile and its growth is extremely slow (1 or 2 millimeters per year). Inside the Park, there is the famous "Alerce Abuelo" with 60 meters high and 2,600 years of life.
Are you thinking of visiting this destination? A super fun way is with our
car tour, a self drive that will allow you to see the most impressive places in Northern Patagonia.
Are you thinking of visiting it? Next, we tell you all the details of this emblematic Argentine National Park:
How to get there
-To access in private car , it is necessary that you go to the city of Esquel and from there, take National Route 259 connecting with Provincial Route 71. By this direction, you reach Villa Futalaufquen, where the administrative center of the National Park is located. Finally, you must continue to the north of the Park joining the Villa with National Route 258.
-You can access it in
public transport: There are buses that leave the Bus Terminal at 8 AM and the frequencies vary according to the season. In January and February the departures are every day and the rest of the year they can vary between two or three times a week.
What activities it offer?
Los Alerces National Park has a range of tourist-recreational activities:
-Sport fishing
-Nautical activities and lake excursions
-Trekking
-Mountaineering
-Public use beaches
-Camping
-Glamping
-Bicycle rides
-Kayak
-Rafting
-Catamaran rides
Trails
For nature lovers, Los Alerces National Park offers different trails divided into difficulty levels to enjoy hiking. In several lanes, it is mandatory to register in the report center. The zones are:
North Zone
-Waterfall Arroyo del Hacha: It is a 45-minute journey (one way) of medium difficulty to a waterfall where you reach a viewpoint of Lake Rivadavia.
Central Zone
-Rock Paintings: It is a 30 minute tour (one way) where you visit an eaves with cave paintings. It has a medium difficulty and is a path with accessibility.
-Puerto Limonao: It is 4 kilometers through the forest, bordering Lake Futalaufquen that take you to the port. The duration of the tour is 2 hours (one way) and has a medium/low difficulty.
-Long Lagoon: It is a tour of 4 kilometers that takes you towards this lagoon that is outside the park. It lasts 2 hours (one way) and has a medium/low difficulty.
-Alto el Petiso: This tour begins in the Port Mermoud where you go through a forest uphill to the rock that takes you to the summit. They are 8 kilometers and the duration is approx. 7 hours (one way) and the difficulty is high. Required to register before.
-Cerro Cocinero: There are 4.3 kilometers that last 5 hours (one way) that start at 150 meters del Arroyo Rañinto with a steep slope that takes you to a high valley. The difficulty is high and it is mandatory to register in advance.
-Cascada Irigoyen: It is a route of low difficulty, lasts 10 minutes (one way ) and upon arrival you can see the waterfall.
-Lake Krugger: It is the most complex path in the Park due to have many slopes and cross the cordon Situation through the Portezuelo (1100 meters), where you can access Playa Blanca (in this place you can camp). The total route is 16.5 kilometers with 2 sections of 6 hours and it is mandatory to register in advance.
-Lahuán Solitario: Es a route of low difficulty, with a duration of 2 hours approx. and begins by crossing the Arrayanes River.
-Lago de las Juntas: It has a medium difficulty and a duration of 2 hours. This path begins by crossing the Arrayanes River and continues bordering the Green Lake to the former town of Mermoud.
-Lago Verde: It is a route 1 hour, with a medium difficulty and where at the end of the trail you have a great panoramic view of Lago Verde, Menéndez and Rivadavia.
-Old Lahuán: It is a trail of low difficulty, lasts 2 hours (one way) that leads you to an 800-year-old Lahuán.
-Laguna Escondida: It lasts 3 hours (one way) with a medium difficulty.
-Quebrada del León: It is a 1 hour tour with medium difficulty that takes you to the viewpoint of a waterfall over the stream.
South Zone
-Laguna del Toro: This path runs through forests of cypress, coihues and ñires to Laguna del Toro and from there, a vis It is beautiful of Lake Amutui Quimey. It has a medium difficulty, with a duration of 2 hours (one way) and a previous registration is mandatory.
-Hydroelectric Complex Interpretive Path: This tour is 20 minutes (one way) where you quickly visit old facilities of the Park, from the time the Park was created. Difficulty: low.
-Cascada de los Tambores: It is a route of low difficulty that lasts 10 minutes (one way) where walk through a cypress forest until you reach the waterfall.
-Travesía a la Balsa: It is a 12.6 kilometer trail that It lasts 6 hours and being of medium difficulty, it is mandatory to register in advance.
-Mirador de los Pozones: It is a short path that It lasts 10 minutes (one way) that offers a view from the top where you can see the formation of rapids of the Futaleufú River. Difficulty: low.
The Millennium Alerce
Los Alerces National Park is characterized by treasuring ancient trees, among which El Alerce Abuelo stands out, which is 2,600 years old. Its geographical location on the shores of Lake Menéndez and surrounded by other larch trees was key to surviving climatic changes, volcanoes and fires.
To get to this tree, you have to hire the Millennial Alerces Forest tour that departs from the National Park parking lot, taking passengers to the Arrayanes Footbridge, where a beautiful walk is made along a path in the forest to reach Puerto Chucao from where The boats leave for Puerto Sagrario where the Abuelo Larch is found and a great variety of larches that coexist with myrtles, lianas and small wild orchids.
El Abuelo is in danger of extinction throughout the world, for this reason this striking tree located in Patagonia Argentina is visited by people from all over the world. The attraction of this 57 meter tall and 2.8 meter diameter tree is undoubtedly its ancient secret. It is the second oldest tree on the planet, behind the Pinus Longaeva found in the United States. The grandfather larch survived 10 generations of myrtles; 400 generations of condors and 87 generations of huemules.
The curiosity of larches is that they have a slow formation process, each one of them grows one millimeter in diameter per year. And it requires a special environment of humidity: in the larch it rains 300 days of the 365 days of the year.
The experience of people who come to visit the Millennium Alerce is almost mystical, many travel hundreds of thousands of kilometers to meditate, or do yoga in this kind of sanctuary.
Story
It was created on May 11, 1937 as a Natural Reserve and seven years later, it was designated as a National Park with the aim of protecting the Patagonian forests , where its main representatives such as Coihue, Arrayán, Caña Colihue and El Alerce (also known as Lahuan) and its fauna: the huiña cat, the pudú, the torrent duck and the huemul.
After several years of meeting all the requirements of the evaluation committee, it was finally declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO on July 7, 2017.
If we travel further in time, the area was populated around the year 1900 and at the time the Park was created, more than one hundred families lived in the territory, which were allowed to remain in place.
Later, they were given "Precarious Occupation and Pasture Permits", non-heritable and non-transferable.
Today there are 30 populations within the territory.
The weather
Los Alerces National Park belongs to the Patagonian region and has a great influence from the Andes Mountains, this means that the climate that predominates in the park is temperate and cold with a humidity that is greater than the eastern zone of Esquel. Since as it moves away from the mountain range the terrain becomes more arid and drier.
The temperature variations are very marked according to the seasons, in the summer (December to March) there is a warm and dry season with temperatures averaging 24 ° C. The days are warm and quite sunny, during the night the temperatures are cooler and usually drop to 18 ° C.
Unlike winters (May to August) which are usually wetter and colder. In this last season of the year there are abundant rains and snowfalls are frequent, causing temperatures to vary between 0 ° C and -5 ° C. The days get shorter (the sun rises around 8 am and falls at 5 pm). If these snowfalls are very strong, it can be covered by up to 10 cm of snow.
It should be noted that the winter snowfalls in Los Alerces National Park are not the same throughout. This depends on the proximity of the area to the mountain ranges. In other words, the further east it is, the less Andean influence it has and, therefore, in the limits of the park further away from the Andes it has less amount of rain and amount of snow
Pudú, emblem of the Park
A very famous and beloved character in the Park is Pudú (Pudu puda), one of the deer smallest in the world because it is only 42 centimeters high. It causes a lot of tenderness!
It feeds on shoots and leaves, ferns, grass and some fruits, it is solitary and commonly lives in the forest. For this reason, viewing it is a privilege.
Recommendations
Here are some tips to keep in mind for your visit:
-Wear comfortable clothes and shoes, according to the occasion.
-A hat, sunscreen and water to hydrate yourself are essential.
- You can download the "Wikiloc" App on your cell phone to follow each of the routes. It's very simple, you just have to activate your location and follow the directions.
-Check the status of the trails in advance.
-The length of the trails are estimated numbers. It is important that you visit them at your own time and according to your physical needs, without being aware of times and enjoying nature.